I was once sixteen and heartbroken, lying on a bed, staring at the ceiling, surrounded by the cornfields of Iowa. It was my sophomore year of high school, and I spent half of it miserable. The air that surrounded me felt cold and hopeless. I listened, equally hopelessly, to a particular Boyz II Men song on repeat using my CD player’s auto loop. I don’t remember details of my angst, but I do remember the pain in detail.
After the sadness came the daydreams. I would leave that place and become someone great, a famous writer with prestige and a good car. I would write for National Geographic and Time. I would travel the world and my name would be everywhere.. I would drive back into town to visit, and when I would return, everyone would see how accomplished I was.
Time passed, life improved, and I didn’t need the daydream anymore. So the dream faded.
I went to college far away and became urban, popular and stylish. I majored in English, but forgot why, so I added two more practical majors. I graduated from college and jumped into an even more practical graduate school program because I felt my childhood dreams were babyish and unrealistic.
I finished school and worked a stuffy job that I hated; a job that hated me. I left that job, had two babies and realized I was lost. One day, I ran across that Boyz II Men CD and realized I hadn’t felt found since those 16 year old dreams that were born in the middle of an Iowa cornfield.
At almost 30, I started writing again. I am not famous or prestigious. Yet. For the first time, though, since I was sixteen, I feel my future expanding and possibility unfolding for me.
The dreams of your youth are often the truest reflection of who you are. Being young has an advantage that established adults forget about: when you are young, your mind is boundless and your future expansive. You have time to become and the imagination to see yourself becoming.
People say that young people don’t have the perspective to make big decisions or the experience to achieve big dreams. Those people are haters, and frankly, they are wrong. Those people have forgotten how to envision, execute and become.
Dream it, work hard, become. The sixteen year old in me is doing it right beside you.
What is your dream?
About the Writer
Kate is a Minnesota mom, raising an intercultural family with two boys 14 months apart. She regularly writes about family and the magic of the mundane, especially those aspects of life that connect us, on her personal blog, Perpetually Nesting. She loves food, trying new things, and she is slowly coming to terms with the fact that becoming a soccer mom is no longer optional. Find her for a conversation on Facebook and Twitter.
About Guest Writer
Love this. As usual, Kate knocks it out of the park.
Twitter Name: nystoopmama
You are too generous, Stoop Mama.
Twitter Name: PerpetuallyKate
This post really resonated with me when I first read it. It’s a shame that many of us were talked out of our dreams by ourselves or others, it’s a triumph that we come back to them after so long, too.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
There’s a Lucille Clifton poem where she talks about a younger version of herself coming to her in a dream. I don’t remember much of it, but I have the sense that she recriminates her current self for what she has/hasn’t become. Her current self says what else could I have become and the dream self says, “This, this, this.” I’ll have to find it in my books when I get home, because my google search has failed.
here it is; not younger self, but better self:
“It was a dream” by Lucille Clifton
in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could i have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This. This. This.
Kate, this is a great piece! I’m so proud of you! My dream is to hopefully, finally, have my undergrad degree by May 2012. After an already delayed graduation plan due to health problems, I found out I will be delayed another semester. I’ve already been in school for 8 years, honestly what’s one more semester. I am in a very different place than my 16 year old self could have ever imagined. Yet, as frustrating as much of it has been, in many ways it has been for the better. I’m with you Kate in starting to write again.
It’s funny that I only recently remembered that in junior high I submitted a short story for publication. It won some sort of local prize in my home county… but I remember the rejection slips that I got from Dell and a few other publishers. I remember my grandfather consoling me and telling me that I didn’t have to give up. But I did give up, right then and there. Until I started blogging again recently, I really haven’t written, and I’d forgotten that long-ago dream in favor of other dreams. I’m happy that I’ve remembered that dream, have rediscovered that passion. I don’t know where it will take me yet, but I share your excitement. Thanks for this lovely inspiring post!